thanks TJ - looks like ok on a straight line - good news is that youngest and smallest (due to a medical condition - all is well but small for age 7 ) is now - as of easter - riding a proper bike with gears - not sure if this reduces or increases options but seems like fun though i'll be misssing my tagalong companion

Me and the wife have been riding together for quite a few years now. She likes the road bike more than mountain biking but still loves getting out on the trails as often as she can. We are now very used to each others riding styles/likes/dislikes so it is very rare we argue about cycle related issues but we still have days when one of us will throw the toys out of the pram, usually about some stupid trivial matter
When it comes to the bikes I have 2 Road & 2 Mountain she has 2 Road & 1 Mountain and thats only because she doesn,t like full suss bikes.
She is getting more confident with every ride we go on, there is one particular local technical downhill she would not try at first, now she is like a women possesed, i will be motoring down on the full suss and she will be close behind on her hard tail I am very proud of how far she has come technically in the last 12 months

we were a pretty good team, and her bike evolved from a heap of crap, to a rather tasty whippet, rather than buying an off the shelf wife-bike
mine was still better though
she also got many parts for christmas/birthday :p

My fiance and i have 9 bikes - i've got one more than him (even if the one more is just my shonky commuter) We used to mtb together all the time, but i'm now more into my road riding, and he's more into mtb'ing, so we are riding separately at the moment, but there's not usually any issues when we mtb together.